Oppo Enco W11 review

Introduction

In the year 2020, we have seen multiple brands joining the True wireless earphone bandwagon in India. Top smartphone makers such as Xiaomi, OnePlus, Realme and Vivo also tried their hand at it. However, it might be Oppo’s W11 which takes the crown.

The Oppo W11 TWS was launched banking on the huge success of the Oppo Enco M31 neckband. It is the company’s third TWS in India after the Oppo Enco Free and Enco W31, both of which received excellent response from the users as well as reviews.

With the budget price tag, Oppo Enco W11 is one of the most affordable wireless earbuds from a reputed brand with a good track record. It competes with offerings from Redmi and Realme, which are separated by only about Rs 500. 

Oppo Enco W11 price and release date in India

The Oppo Enco W11 was announced alongside the Oppo A52 in India in June, at a price of Rs 2,499. It can often be found listed at Rs 1,999 during sales and promotions. Flipkart is the online sale partner. Only a white colour option is currently available.

Check out the Oppo Enco W11 on Flipkart 

Design and fit

Truly wireless earbuds can be broadly classified into two categories: in-ear style and semi in-ear. The Oppo Enco W11 is a part of the former camp. You get three sizes of foam /silicone ear tips to tailor the fit according to your preferences. The default medium ones worked well enough for me. The box also includes a short USB Type-C cable and the usual user manual and warranty booklet.

Talking about the earbuds, they come in at just 4.4 grams each and with the included case, weighs 44 grams. The earbuds come only in White colour option. The buds come in a bean shape with in-ear tip and a microphone on the top. The buds can go deep into the ears without getting uncomfortable. In fact, the fit was so great that I was even able to sleep with them on.

The Oppo Enco W11 is also comfortable for long hours of usage. On the outside, the buds have a glossy finish (including the case) and it has fairly large touch-sensitive areas which are pretty intuitive. The buds snap to the magnets inside the case tightly and you also get a satisfying sound when you close the lid. Since they come in glossy design, they won’t attract fingerprints and dust easily, which is one less thing to worry about.

The glossy charging case comes with Oppo branding on the top and houses a Type-C port at the back of the case. At the front, you get a LED indicator which turns Green, Orange, and Red that indicates charged, charging, and needs to be charged respectively. Further, they are also IP55 rated against water and dust. These buds can be used during the intense gym session as well during the rains.

Overall, Oppo has managed to do a great job with excellent build and the fit is also pretty good here.

Sound quality 

The audio will be streamed via Bluetooth 5.0 with simultaneous transmission, meaning the connection will be established to both the buds at the same time. The chipset, combined with Oppo’s execution, works well without any issue.   

Connecting the buds to any Bluetooth device for the first time is pretty straight forward. Just take it out of the box and turn on Bluetooth on your device and click on ‘Oppo Enco W11’. There is not a quick switch button / gesture or a hardware button on the case to enter the pairing mode. 

Connecting the buds to any Bluetooth device for the first time is pretty straight forward. Just take it out of the box and turn on Bluetooth on your device and click on ‘Oppo Enco W11’. There is not a quick switch button/gesture or a hardware button on the case to enter the pairing mode. 

The Enco W11 packs in 8mm dynamic drivers and supports AAC and SBC audio profiles. The sound is loud and clear for the most part and is mostly suited for media consumption. The bass is not too thumpy here and it is just above average; and for Bollywood and bass-heavy songs, these aren’t the perfect match. The bass is often inconsistent - it gets muddy. Apart from the bass, the earbuds perform really well with pure music. With the out of the box settings, we felt the mids and high were a bit low. Once we played with the equalizer in the phone’s settings, the highs and lows were heard more clearly. With this tweak, the bass was also improved by a bit. Overall, if you make use of the equalizer well and tweak a bit, the TWS will sound much better than the default settings. 

As far as the call quality is concerned, this earbuds was just Okayish with calls. The person on the other end could not hear me properly and they said the audio from our end was pretty hallow. Unfortunately, environmental noise cancellation does not help here. In our testing, the calls that were taken indoors sounded better than outside. Thus, we can’t recommend this TWS for those who want to primarily take calls on the TWS. It’s definitely usable indoors, but for the outdoors, they’re aren’t easy to recommend.  Since there is no low-latency mode onboard during the gaming, we could notice a slight delay in the output, making them unsuitable for certain games.

There’s a healthy selection of controls here. A single tap will play/pause the music, double-tap on the left and right bud can be used to move to previous and next track respectively. A long press on the left bud will decrease the volume and doing the same on the right bud will increase the volume. You can answer/reject the incoming call by double-tapping on withe buds. Finally, a triple tap will launch Google assistant. 

In my experience and testing time, all of the above-mentioned functions flawlessly and we were pretty happy and surprised to see these many options built into the tiny bud. There is no dedicated app, but that’s acceptable at this price point.

Battery and charging

Oppo claims 5 hours of playback with the buds themselves and 20 more in the case. In our testing, we got 4 hours and 15 minutes of continuous music playback at 80% volume on a single charge and with the charging case, we got four more full charges. On average, we could touch the 18-20 hour mark of total usage which included music playback, video streaming, casual gaming, and calls. 

Each bud sports a 40mAh battery and the case houses a 400mAh battery. For charging the Enco W11 takes about 90 minutes to completely charge from nothing. Oppo also claims a quick 15 minutes charge will offer one hour of music playback. However, we got about 45 minutes of music playback with 80% volume. 

Overall, we were pretty happy with the battery life and the fact that it comes with a Type-C port makes our life easier. Not the best, but acceptable for the size.

Verdict 

We don’t have much to complain about the Oppo Enco W11 true wireless earbuds. The TWS misses out on the low-latency/gaming mode and also brings sub-par call quality. These couple things take away the crown from the Enco W11 from being the best in the segment. If these two are not your priority, these offers solid build and battery life along with good sound quality. You also get IP55 rating and Type-C charging port. 

The Oppo Enco W11 is yet another good audio product from Oppo after three Encos(Free, W11, and M31). However, unlike those three, the Oppo Enco W11 is not a clear winner in the budget price segment. If you are looking for a more bass-heavy option, you can check out the Realme Buds Q and if you are on a tight buffet, you can go for Redmi Earbuds S. Apart from these brands, Noise and Boat also have decent offerings at this price point. 

Check out the Oppo Enco W11 on Flipkart

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